RE: WHEN THE BOOK READS YOU WHILE YOU THINK YOU READ THE BOOK
What an in-depth and thoughtful argument you've written here, Erika! And, congratulations on the curie and big distribution of your words.
I went off on your link to confluence and Gestalt defense mechanisms and felt my mind trying to determine where again it may experience difficulty ;)
AI is a scary prospect to me because I am not sure it will ever make it to that point of an artificial intelligence taking the time to meditate or to be more human as that would mean it somehow was outsmarted by enough human's to have to adapt itself in some way. (?)
Like you mention, there are not only those who in power with their money who just want to see a continued profit (we see now with data mining, etc), but then there are also those who are limited in their psychological/spiritual expansion.
Made me laugh that you were having similar judgmental thoughts (though I agree 100%), to the Ted-talk-guy just as I was having towards some of those at the monastery I wrote about :)
I think as long as we are meat sacks filled with water, but ones with beating hearts, that we will feel lonely without human companionship and another meat sack to roll around with or talk to. Yes, there are so many distractions and substitutes out there, online forums, Internet porn, but nothing really compares to the real connections.
If AI takes over and we're pushed out of position, reduced to slaves to the machine, perhaps w/o access to Internet/electricity what have you, the loneliness will sweep right back over a population with pacifiers abruptly ripped from their mouths.
Okay, I'm really going off on a freewrite tangent here!
Sending love to you and grateful for our cyber connection,
Kimberly
Thank you, Kimberly, for your kind comment.
I think we modern people have to get along with much less closeness than those just a few decades ago. Definitely like those a hundred years ago. The narrowness and dependency of the people of that time was probably more their problem, they could never be alone, never beyond social control, and as we know, for the shepherd's hour one had to steal away or live with the fact that many other bodies listened to sexual intercourse in their neighbour bunks at night. I can imagine that many people were certainly not very disturbed by that. Everything that is normal is not remarkable.
The Ted guy played his part excellently. And as much as I felt disturbed by him, the positive connotation is exactly that: he takes on a very uncomfortable role as a substitute, which thousands of others also represent inwardly, but do not reveal in this presence. So we can really thank him from the bottom of our hearts because he draws attention to something very upsetting. I felt every human emotion in me break its path and I would have preferred to shake him, at the same time another part of me could understand his longing and another part could recognize his error. Nevertheless I would not give him or this idea of him my capital.
We all have the spiritual limitation. I include you and me:) We humans now and we humans of the future will be much more dependent on knowing ourselves well, perhaps more than ever this is important.
The fact that we get the pacifiers torn from our mouths does not seem to me to be even an interest of the makers of AI. The longer and more intensive we suck the pacifiers, the better data suppliers we are. I see rather the tendency that we are not even slaves but become irrelevant. If all cognitive tasks are done better by AI than by humans, suddenly very existential questions arise for humans. We must not have an offended ego about this question but really look at what makes us human in the service of other people. If one ascends the ego and concentrates on the infamous insult, a psychological loss of identity threatens. This can go very well in cases where a person is ripe for this loss. For a person who is not ready for it, it can be a catastrophe.
In this sense, as seeing us forced to come to very deep and fundamental questions, on which the development of AI is dragging us, we can thank that technology in doing so. Another positive connotation ;-)
On the other hand, I believe that because people are so incredibly adaptable, they would quickly rub their eyes and pick up where they left off without their pacifier. At least if it is not an end-time scenario. How quickly people suddenly start to know their neighbours again and to be in contact with them can be seen in power and food shortages. The willingness to cooperate is enormous. Just like the willingness, of course, to make small crimes and profit from the fact that there is need somewhere. We always get the whole package, never half of it. It is always something sweet, just like something sour in it.
Love received! <3 Sending some back to you.
Yours Erika
Yes, the whole package, sweet and sour and you are good at accepting/naming the positive connotations and I admire that in you.
Not much time to respond right now, but I thank you for your engaging response and want to let you know that I will be going to bed with this line of yours on my mind as it strikes me in a profound way:
This can go very well in cases where a person is ripe for this loss. For a person who is not ready for it, it can be a catastrophe.
I fear the catastrophe.....